-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
REMINDER: SI ONLY KNOWS FSN, FZ AND FA
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
Waking up in a black void filled with what looked like stars wasn't exactly how I imagined dying.
I was dead... Right?
Or was I dreaming?
I didn't even get a chance to scream, much less think, before a figure appeared in front of me. It looked like a human silhouette made entirely of those tiny, swirling stars. Honestly, it reminded me of Alien X.
"Oh? What's this? Another soul wandering in the void?" It spoke. It clearly didn't have a mouth, yet the voice echoed perfectly inside my head.
What the hell is going on? Who is this? What is this?
"I have been seeing a lot of your kind here lately," It continued, sounding amused. "Your afterlife is leaking like a sieve. It has something to do with all those intense desires to leave your old world behind and go on some grand adventure."
What the hell is he going on about? Afterlife? Leaking? Wait... is he saying our afterlife is broken because people want to get isekai'd?
"Bingo," the entity said, its voice tinged with dry humor. "This so-called 'isekai anime' trend in your universe has done quite a number on human souls. Some of you even have the audacity to demand I send you to some random world. The gall."
...So he can read my mind. Great.
"Lucky for you," it said, shifting slightly, the galaxies inside its form swirling. "I find this entertaining. So rather than let you wither away here, I'm going to send you to a world of my choosing. For fun."
Before I could protest—or think of anything useful to say–I felt pain.
Real, blinding pain.
It spread through every inch of my being. My cells. My atoms. It felt like my soul was being ripped apart and stitched back together all at once. No screams came out. Only raw sensation.
"I'll send you off with a boon," the being said casually, as if I wasn't currently being unmade. "So you don't die a pathetic death immediately. Survive. Thrive. And above all... enjoy. You've been given a second chance."
And with that, the stars vanished.
And the fall began.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
The sky above the ruined city cracked; then it shattered. A hole made of the absolute worst emotions of humanity bled into the broken skyline, and from its depths, something was violently ejected.
Not something. Someone.
A meteor of flesh and energy fell from the hole of terror and smashed into the ground with the force of a missile.
BOOM!
The impact created a shockwave of dust and air, shattering nearby buildings and knocking them over like a stack of cards blown by the wind.
At the bottom of the newly formed crater lay a man as still as a corpse. He was tall and lean, his frame deceptively slender yet shadowed with coiled strength. His hair, black as ink and unruly, fell in loose spikes over a face that was almost human–almost.
Below his main set of eyes, situated high on his cheekbones, sat a second, smaller pair. They weren't just markings or slits; they were fully formed, glinting faintly in the dark, waiting to see.
He wore a white kimono that had survived the impact in eerie perfection, its fabric draping over him like a ceremonial burial cloth. Black markings–jagged, tribal tattoos akin to ancient sigils–crept across his neck and arms, tracing along his cheeks and the center of his forehead. His nails, long and sharpened to predatory points, were painted a deep onyx, glinting faintly against the dust.
Time seemed to crawl at a snail's pace. The world itself seemed to pause as the torn sky seamlessly stitched itself back together. Then, just as it closed, the man's hand twitched.
Suddenly.
Four crimson eyes snapped open.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
MC POV
These past few minutes? Hours? Days? It was hard to tell.
Not long ago, I was just another guy with average luck and an average life. A pedestrian. A nobody. Then came the screech of tires, the rush of steel, and the dark.
I didn't expect an afterlife. I definitely didn't expect a void filled with stars… or a being made of them who liked to crack jokes about anime tropes.
He–no, it–called me a wanderer. A soul with too much desire. One of many caught between worlds because of my obsession with escapism.
"Lucky for you," he had said. "I'm in a good mood."
And now… here I am.
Laying in a crater in the middle of a burning city, smoke thick in the air, ash clinging to my skin–and in a body that definitely isn't the one I was born with.
I stood up, dusting off the white kimono. Hands that weren't mine brushed against fabric that felt ancient. I looked down at them. Onyx nails, tribal tattoos.
I knew exactly who I was. Or rather, what I was now.
I was the hardware (body) of Megumi Fushiguro running the software (mind) of Ryomen Sukuna. But the user? The admin? The soul? That was all me.
There was no second voice in the back of my head. No King of Curses trying to claw for control, no depressed teenager crying about his sister. It was just… quiet.
And honestly? That should have terrified me. Waking up in a fictional body, in a place that smelled like sulfur and death, should have had me hyperventilating. But I felt calm. Almost unnaturally so.
The being—the Star Guy—must have tweaked something during the download. It wasn't that I couldn't feel fear; I knew if I saw a darker eldritch horror right now I'd be scared. But regarding this? This reincarnation? It felt… natural. Like slipping into a tailored suit that fit better than my old skin ever did.
The memories were there, too. Sukuna's life stretched back multiple decades—river's of blood, cursed energy, and hedonism. They didn't feel like a movie I watched; they felt like things I had done, even though I knew I hadn't.
And the strength?
Oh, the strength.
I clenched my fist, feeling the cursed energy coil in my gut. It wasn't just raw power; it was potential. It felt like a ceiling I didn't know existed had just been shattered, allowing a glimpse into something beyond. The Sukuna in my memories had chosen "North" in the afterlife—to change, to evolve. And now, I was that evolution.
"Well," I murmured. My voice came out as a deep rumble that vibrated in my chest. Damn, that sounded badass. "Let's see where this chance leads to."
I glanced around the crater. A glint of familiar metal caught my upper right eye–God, seeing out of four eyes was trippy. It was like having a dual-monitor setup for my vision, a panoramic view that missed nothing.
There, half-buried in the rubble, were two things I never thought I'd see outside of a manga panel.
Kamutoke, the vajra that commanded lightning. And Hiten, the three-pronged trident.
I picked them up, the weight of the cursed tools feeling oddly comforting in my hands. Like picking up your keys and wallet before leaving the house.
Uraume would be pleased.
The thought popped into my head unbidden. I paused. Uraume… my loyal servant. My cook. My… what?
I frowned. In my old life, Uraume was a fictional character. But here, with Sukuna's memories seamlessly woven into mine, the emotional context changed. They weren't just a tool. Someone who stood by a monster like Sukuna for a thousand years, waiting centuries just to serve him again? That wasn't just loyalty. That was family.
A dry chuckle escaped me. Family. Who would have ever thought the King of Curses would think about familial bonds? I guess that's the "new me" talking.
Shaking my head, I decided to actually look at where I'd landed.
And boy-oh-boy, was this a hellhole.
Shattered windows, rebar popping out of buildings like broken bones, fire ravaging everything in sight. But most importantly: CURSED.
The air tasted foul. If my senses were right–and with this body, they always were–the entire city was soaked in something nasty. It felt like someone had taken a ocean's worth of cursed energy, tainted it, and then detonated it like a bomb.
An uneasy feeling coiled in my gut. If it was what I suspected… then something, or someone, as strong as me had done this.
But right alongside the unease, a flicker of excitement bubbled in my chest. My blood started to heat up. Fighting someone capable of this kind of destruction? That sounded… appetizing.
Easy now, I told myself. Don't go full battle-junkie yet.
I was no dumb berserker. No matter how powerful I was, walking into a fight blind was the height of folly. I suppose a little reconnaissance wouldn't hurt.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
I crouched, my muscles tightening like a high-tension spring.
Launch.
I kicked off the asphalt. The road didn't just crack; it disintegrated, exploding into a spiderweb of debris under the sheer force of my takeoff. The wind whipped past my face as I soared hundreds of feet into the air, the cityscape blurring below me.
Gravity tried to pull me back down, but I caught the air itself under my feet. It felt solid, like kicking off a concrete wall. Air jump. The sensation was incredible.
As I ascended, I willed my shadow to rise. It didn't just stretch; it liquefied, coiling around my body like a second skin before stopping at my right palm. The darkness solidified, spitting out the shape of Hiten into my grip.
The Megumi part of my brain marveled at the fluidity of the motion.
Now that I was in the driver's seat, I realized just how dim the kid actually was. For someone living in the modern era–where superpowers and sci-fi logic are everywhere–Megumi lacked imagination. He treated the Ten Shadows User Manual like it was the Bible; if it wasn't written down, he didn't try it.
He had this technique since he was, what? Five or six? And it took him nearly ten years–until the Goodwill Event–to realize, "Hey, maybe I can store a sword in my shadow." Ten years to find the inventory slot.
It was embarrassing. Even the original Sukuna in my memories felt second-hand cringe at how mediocre the usage was.
I shook my head, refocusing. I channeled energy into Hiten. The three-pronged treasure hummed, responding instantly. With a minor twist of my wrist, I activated its wind manipulation. A focused gust blasted the thick, ashy smoke out of my path, while the air currents beneath me hardened, turning my freefall into a stable glide.
The view below was perfectly clear.
The destruction below was... nostalgic. It was the kind of carnage the original Sukuna would have painted on a canvas of flesh and concrete. I spotted a skyscraper that looked stable enough and adjusted my trajectory.
I landed on the flat roof, the impact cracking the already stressed concrete foundation, and took it all in.
Below, the streets were swarmed. Skeletons.
Hundreds of them, shambling through the wreckage. They weren't Cursed Spirits–they had physical bones–but they were animated by an energy that felt foreign. Yet, woven into that foreign energy was the undeniable taint of Cursed Energy.
My eyes narrowed as the four visual inputs zoomed in. The structure of the bones...
"Hm."
It made sense. The city was destroyed, but there were no bodies. No corpses. Just ash and rubble. Someone had repurposed the dead.
Necromancy.
An old memory surfaced–a Curse from the Heian era that could puppet corpses. But this was different. These weren't zombies; they were clean skeletons. Biologically, they shouldn't be able to move. No muscles, no ligaments. Just magic holding bone to bone.
How marvelous.
New magic systems to learn. New rules to break.
But even more interesting was what was missing. A city cursed to high hell like this should be a breeding ground for Cursed Spirits. Roaches, Flyheads, maybe even a Special Grade or two feeding off the despair.
But there was nothing. The city was sterile.
I felt the ambient cursed energy swiveling in the air, trying to coalesce into a Curse, but falling apart just before it could form. Like the atmosphere itself was missing a vital component for their birth.
Interesting.
These skeletons were beneath my notice–destroying them would be a waste of the calorie burn–but the mechanism behind them was worth a look. I ignored the rabble below and closed my eyes–well, all four of them–and let my senses expand.
I stretched my perception outward, miles from my vantage point, sweeping across the burning grid of the city. I was looking for a nexus. A source.
I sensed them before I saw them.
About five kilometers away, atop the great bridge spanning the river, stood four distinct signatures. They were pathetically weak compared to the energy roiling through the city, but something about them peaked my interest.
I focused. My four eyes narrowed as my vision turned telescopic.
There were four figures.
One was a strange paradox—a girl with pinkish-purple hair wielding a cross-shaped shield that was far too large for her slender frame.
I narrowed my eyes, looking past the flesh and seeing the shape of the soul beneath. It was bizarre. There was a second, massive soul superimposed over her own, blindingly bright. It wasn't a forced takeover like my original self or the other ancient sorcerers Kenjaku brought back.
It reminded me of Angel and that girl Hana Kurusu during the Culling Games. A symbiotic incarnation. The ancient soul was fully awake, yet it was voluntarily holding back, letting the human vessel stay in the driver's seat while acting only as a battery/mentor.
Next to her was a woman with stark white hair, barking orders despite the terror plainly etched on her face. A sorcerer–or whatever the equivalent was here–judging by the strange pathways flaring up beneath her skin.
But the energy wasn't Cursed Energy. It wasn't fueled by negative emotions. It felt more like raw life force being processed through a specific, physical organ system, almost like a secondary nervous system. It was efficient, structured, and completely foreign to the world I came from.
Something about this felt awfully familiar.
I noted it down. Even with those glowing pathways firing on all cylinders, her actual output was mediocre at best.
And then, the last two. Twins, by the look of their souls. A boy with black hair and a girl with fiery red hair. They were huddled behind the shield-girl, looking completely out of their depth.
But then my eyes locked onto the red-haired girl's right hand.
Etched onto her skin were three red, geometric strokes. They pulsed with a specific thread of this magical energy that bound her to the shield-user.
Command Seals?
I froze. The realization hit me like a truck.
Oh, fuck me. I'm in Fate.
I felt a headache coming. Fate meant overpowered heroes, conceptual bullshit, timeline nonsense, and mages with logic so twisted it gave headaches to eldritch horrors.
My internal monologue was cut short by a roar that shook the bridge itself.
A building at the far end didn't just crack; it burst apart, showering the group with concrete and rebar. The shield-girl clumsily blocked the larger debris, her stance screaming amateur.
Then, through the dust, he appeared.
A giant made of grey, rock-like muscle, standing nearly nine feet tall and holding a crude stone axe the size of my torso. The energy rolling off him was suffocating—dense, muddy, and dripping with madness.
Berserker.
There was no mistaking that silhouette. That was Heracles. The Berserker from Stay Night.
But seeing him here, in this burning city, another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. The skeletons. The pervasive feeling of the city being "cursed." This thick, hateful mud covering the spiritual atmosphere.
Fuyuki City on fire... Heracles corrupted by shadow...
This wasn't just a fire. This was All the World's Evil. Angra Mainyu.
A cold drop of sweat–or was it fear?–trickled down my spine. If my theory was right, I wasn't just going to fight a hero; I was standing in the playground of a newborn God of Evil. A being that arguably killed the original cast in whatever timeline this was.
But as the thought formed, the fear didn't settle. It evaporated.
In its place, a grin tore across my face, stretching wide and feral. My blood began to boil, hot and fast.
A God?
Who in their right mind would want to fight a God?
Me.
The Sukuna in me roared in approval, and the new me–the guy who enjoyed playing Elder Scrolls for fun–was screaming in excitement. This was a boss fight. A hidden boss.
Let's eat.
Just as I was about to make my move, he moved. With speed that rivaled my own, it swung its axe at the group. The shield user caught the blow, the shield itself holding firm against the impossible force.
A Noble Phantasm focused on defense?
The shield held for a moment, but the wielder was too light. She was sent flying like a stone from a catapult, tumbling down the bridge.
I shot forward, a blur of motion tearing through the air, but I was a split second late.
The giant's follow-up was brutal–a careless, dismissive backhand. It struck the white-haired woman. She didn't even scream; she just folded, cartwheeling off the side of the bridge and into the cursed muddy water below.
Unfortunate for her.
Just as the giant raised his weapon again. This time, his shadow loomed over the remaining two–the terrified twins. I arrived.
I didn't bother with a word or a warning. I simply smashed into the giants side with the full force of my momentum.
The impact was titanic.
The bridge groaned, its steel support structure screaming as our combined mass tore through the guardrail. We were launched over the side, careening through the air, away from the terrified Masters, and plummeting straight into the heart of the burning city.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
For Gudako Fujimaru, the apocalypse had started with cake crumbs.
One moment, she was standing with her twin brother, Ritsuka, in the sterile, high-tech command center of a place called Chaldea. They were trying very hard not to fall asleep during an orientation they barely understood.
The next, a sharp slap across both their faces from the frankly terrifying woman called Director Animusphere echoed through the room.
"Get these buffoons out of my sight!" Olga Marie had shrieked, her face a mask of incandescent rage.
Mortified, they had been "escorted" out. The quiet, pink-haired girl from before, Mash Kyrielight, had followed a moment later and guided them through the pristine white halls.
"This is your room, Senpai," Mash had said softly, gesturing to the quarters they would share.
The first thing they saw upon entering was a man with fluffy orange hair lounging on the bed, happily munching on a slice of strawberry shortcake. There were crumbs everywhere. On the floor. On the desk. On their brand-new sheets.
"Hi there! I'm Dr. Romani Archaman," he'd said with a lazy smile, completely unbothered by their intrusion.
Their conversation was a whirlwind of confusing facts—Romani explaining the "bare-bones" of Chaldea's mission to "preserve the Human Order," a concept so grand it sounded like it came from a cheap sci-fi novel. Apparently, she and Ritsuka were "Master Candidates," recruited for their "high affinity." It all sounded like nonsense.
Then, mid-conversation, the world shook.
A deep, violent BOOM rattled the entire facility. The lights flickered and died, instantly replaced by the angry, pulsing red glow of emergency klaxons.
"Wha–What the hell was that?!" Ritsuka yelled, bracing himself against the doorframe.
"That's not good," Romani said, all traces of his slacker persona vanishing in an instant. He rushed out of the room, grabbing his datapad. "Stay here where it's safe! I have to go see what's happening!"
He ran left. Ritsuka looked at Gudako, then ran right, back toward the Command Center. She followed him. The pair who fell asleep in orientation, the pair who annoyed the Director–they weren't going to be the ones who sat in their room while the world ended.
The pristine white halls were now a vision of hell. Fire licked from shattered walls, and the air was thick with the acrid smell of burning plastic and ozone.
It was in the wreckage of a corridor near the central hub that they found her.
Mash.
She was pinned, half-crushed under a massive slab of fallen concrete reinforcement. Her uniform was torn, and her face was streaked with soot and tears.
"Mash!" Ritsuka scrambled over the debris, digging his fingers under the massive slab. "Gudako, help me lift this!"
She rushed to his side. They heaved, their muscles straining, but the concrete wouldn't budge. It was too heavy. It was impossible.
"Senpai..." Mash whispered, her voice weak. She reached out a trembling hand, her fingers stained with blood. "Please... run..."
Tears blurred Gudako's vision. She ignored the command. She dropped to her knees in the burning rubble and took Mash's hand, squeezing it tight.
"I'm right here," she promised, her voice cracking. "We aren't going anywhere."
Then, a brilliant white light swallowed them. A feeling of being pulled and she knew no more.
She awoke to the smell of sulfur and ash. The sky was blood-red, and a city of flames stretched out before her.
Mash was there, too. But the injury was gone. The fear was gone. She was clad in strange, form-fitting black armor, holding a shield that looked like a piece of a fortress wall.
"I am a Demi-Servant," Mash had said, her voice filled with a strange, new steel. "I will protect you, Master."
Gudako's world had been a cascade of impossible facts ever since. They found the Director, Olga Marie Animusphere, wounded but alive. Her sheer terror was eclipsed only by her screaming frustration as she led them through the ruined streets of Fuyuki toward the great bridge.
"It's a leyline!" Olga had explained, her voice frantic as she checked her bracelet. "A place of power! If we can get a connection, we can contact Chaldea!"
The brief, crackling communication with Dr. Romani had only painted a grimmer picture. Chaldea was in ruins. Forty-seven other Master Candidates were in critical condition.
"You, and the twins... you are all we have left," the Doctor's strained voice echoed from the bracelet.
The news hit Gudako with the force of a physical blow. Those forty-seven people… they were dying. Because they weren't her. Because she and Ritsuka had somehow, impossibly, survived.
Olga ended the call, her face pale but set with grim resolve. She knelt on the asphalt of the bridge, using a piece of sharp scrap metal and a drop of her own blood to hastily scribe a glowing, complex circle.
"We have no choice," Olga stated, her hands shaking slightly. "We must call forth a Heroic Spirit–a Servant. A champion from humanity's history to fight for us. It's our only chance."
Hope, a fragile, desperate thing, began to bloom in Gudako's chest. A real hero? Someone like Musashi or Okita Sōji? Someone who could actually fight and save them from this nightmare?
As Olga finished the final line of the circle, the air pressure on the bridge plummeted.
There was no warning. A building at the far end of the bridge didn't just explode–it vanished. A shockwave of dust and concrete slammed into them.
Mash raised the massive cross-shield, blocking the worst of the debris, but the force rattled her bones.
Then, out of the dust cloud, a monster walked out.
A giant made of grey muscle, holding a jagged stone axe. It roared—a sound that vibrated in Gudako's teeth—and charged.
"What… what IS that thing?!" Olga screamed, stumbling back.
The giant moved with a speed that defied physics. Mash met the charge, her shield held high.
CLANG!
The impact was titanic. Gudako watched in horror as Mash–superpowered armor and all–was swatted away like a fly, sent tumbling down the highway.
The monster didn't stop. Its follow-up was a brutal, a backhand that struck the Director.
Olga didn't even have time to scream. She was launched off the side of the bridge with a sickening splash into the dark water below.
"Director!" Ritsuka yelled, reaching out to empty air.
They were alone.
The giant, the Monster, turned its burning red eyes on them. A mile on his terrifying face. It took a single, ground-shaking step, raising its massive stone axe high above its head.
Time seemed to slow. Gudako couldn't move. She grabbed Ritsuka's hand, squeezing it just like she had squeezed Mash's in the rubble. They were small, insignificant things in the path of a natural disaster.
The axe began its descent.
Please, she begged silently. Anyone.
And then, the sky broke.
A blur of white cloth smashed into the giant from above.
For a split second, Gudako's heart soared. The summoning circle—had it worked? Was this him? Was this their Savior?
The impact was cataclysmic. The white blur slammed into the grey monster with enough force to shatter the bridge railing. The two beings–the monster and the savior–were launched over the side in a tangle of limbs, plummeting toward the burning city below.
"Alive..." Ritsuka gasped, falling to his knees.
Gudako crawled to the edge of the shattered bridge, ignoring the ringing in her ears. Down in the heart of the city, a battle of titans was already raging. Shockwaves rocked the foundations of the buildings, kicking up plumes of fire and dust.
She didn't know who the man in white was. She didn't know if he was a Heroic Spirit or something else entirely. But as she watched the destruction unfold, Gudako Fujimaru let out a raw, ragged sob.
They were alive. For now.
-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-
Authors Note:
So, as you can see, I've moved this to a new storry (and taken it out of A Cursed King's Adventure). The reason's simple: I've decided to do both fics.
Yeah, I know some of you might think this is a huge undertaking — and it kinda is — but I really don't want to abandon A Cursed King's Adventure. So here's the plan: I'll go arc by arc. I'll finish Fuyuki here, then hop over and do Orleans there. After I wrap up Orleans there, I'll come back and do Orleans here. Rinse and repeat.
If you've got a better idea on how to manage this without burning out, feel free to suggest it. I know it'll get a bit much at times. Right now, my plan is to write around 8k words for each fic every week (or maybe 14–16k for just one, depending on how things go) on Pat - reon, and then drop weekly updates here with some surprise drops when possible. Updates for this fic will be on Fridays, and the other one will be on Saturdays.
Subscribe on my Pat - reon . com / st_scarface for earlier updates (maybe some Omake's as well).
As always, thanks for the support. See you in the next one.
Ciao